This disclosure relates to data replication between software versions and, more particularly, to methodologies for maintaining functionality with respect to data created in a different software version.
Distributed applications may require data to be replicated between different computing environments to ensure a responsive experience. For example, in a content management application, separate authoring, user acceptance test, and delivery computing environments may exist. Each computing environment may include a separate copy of a content repository upon which operations in each computing environment may be performed.
When software updates (e.g., incremental service packs and/or installation of a new release) are applied, it may be necessary to update all computing environments together to ensure data consistency and compatibility. A new version of the application may add a new feature. The new feature may add new fields to the content repository. For the application to continue to run and maintain correct information in the repository, it may be necessary that all computing environments use the same version of a repository schema.
Distributed applications may be large, especially enterprise applications, and updating multiple computing environments may be difficult, especially if each computing environment is a clustered system. Uptime requirements may be affected, and the risk of manual errors may be increased. Accordingly, there may be a need to improve ways to replicate data between software versions.